From a professional standpoint, you might see better manageability with the Intel cards than the Realtek. From an end-user standpoint, probably not. The best "gaming" network cards are the Killer K1 series, and usually the gains are minimal.

I have been using the onboard NIC (usually Realtek) on my systems for a good ten years, and I've never had any hardware problems (only a couple driver issues).If you had to buy one of the two, I'd say either the Intel D33745 PCI-Express x1 or Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual-Port-Server-Adapter PCI-Express x4.

i am asking bcs i can get them around 10~20euro used on ebay so i was wondering how much better the Intel chip actually will be for my daily uses and if the Intel Pro/1000 MT PCI will be fine or is the PCI port to slow?

i am asking bcs i can get them around 10~20euro used on ebay so i was wondering how much better the Intel chip actually will be for my daily uses and if the Intel Pro/1000 MT PCI will be fine or is the PCI port to slow?

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The short answer can be expressed in 3 points.

1) Integrated NICs are usually passable. They are the cheaper chips on low to mid range boards, but your internet connection will likely be a smaller bandwidth than your internal networking connections.

2) PCI is too slow for Gb speeds. They sell them cheaper than PCI-e for a good reason. Gb networking hardware on a PCI bus is connecting a Ferrari motor to a Geo drivetrain. You may have a hugely powerful engine (analog to Gb chipset), but the drivetrain can't transfer the energy (analog to PCI bus). Always go at least PCI-e x1 with Gb networking, always...

3) Discrete networking cards are, at best, difficult to qualitatively justify. The 10% to 15% specs that people cite generally are difficult to experience in the real world. If you're going with a big name NIC like Intel, it might be better to go with something like Killer. The performance increase might be the same, but the pricing could well be lower.

*Edit: Killer has rather drastically come down in pricing. Intel remains at about what they were several years ago. Neither is a bad option, but Killer is finally becoming a reasonably budgeted option.

Get any Pro/1000 PCI-e. I got the Pro/1000 CT and it was much better than my onboard realtek.
Intel are just as good as the Killer NICs. I have friends who tested both, and the Killer NICS are just more expensive than the Intel for comparable performance.
Both brands are better than onboard. But with Killer, you are paying for a lot of hype.

This was with the older Kilelr NICs though. They may have gotten better in the past few years.

he said SNR, so to me that means while it is downloading the image there is less interference/noise and so it gets transmitted more accurately than if it had more interference/noise.

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What?

Analog is the only medium where a color value can be misinterpretted, because of an infinite number of shades. Digital SNR reflects how much noise can be tolerated with a given signal strength. It will define how much information can be transmitted accurately over "noisy" lines, and how much information can be received over "noisy" lines.

Claims that a high SNR ratio will allow "crisper" images on web pages are mind boggling. They demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to digital signal processing, as well as information transfer protocols which make sure our digital signals keep the 1s and 0s in the right place.

What? Seriously?

Edit: Apologies. This may seem angry, but I meant it as anger towards such a massive misunderstanding. If you make a claim of knowledge, then you had better be ready to defend yourself, or apologize for your stupidity. Having had to do the later when I used to post quickly, I wish other people would spend the time to research themselves before making a claim.

I doubt it. Maybe when connected directly to the modem, maybe. If anything, it won't be significant. You might see a better gain by cobbling together some really old computer and turning it into a router with DD-WRT or something like that.

I doubt it. Maybe when connected directly to the modem, maybe. If anything, it won't be significant. You might see a better gain by cobbling together some really old computer and turning it into a router with DD-WRT or something like that.

Sometimes discrete LAN cards can help with weak signal (electrical) strength (happens when the cable is too long). Certain onboard chipsets fail to work, or their link-speed/duplex is negotiated lower than the link (eg: 100/full getting negotiated as 10/full).

I get a CAT5 cable directly from the ISP to my place. That cable must be running at least 60 meters to the hub that handles a row of houses in my neighbourhood. That hub basically is a fiber-optic cable modem that gives out some 20-odd downstream links, and links upstream over OFC.

A little while ago newegg was selling Xeno pros for $40. That's $3 more than Intel's cheapest pci-e card. Even if you can't believe there's a performance benefit I'd say it's worth the $3 just for the management software. It's out of stock now but hopefully it'll be back.

There's little to no performance difference between onboard and an Intel NIC. Killer NIC's are junk; both software and hardware wise. They're no more than a gimmick. The NIC's on the images are all based on the Intel Pro 1000 PT, which is an older but still very common NIC. It's made in both PCI and PCI-E flavors. Companies like HP rebrand it. Oh and, comes with or without a heatsink depending on whether it's dual or single port. The PCB is made as dual port, but some cards have one chip while the others have two. I made CrossOver with two Pro 1000's instead of buying a Gigabit router, and it works well. With these said, the only time your pings will decrease is LAN. In WAN, you won't see a performance difference. Maybe a ping or two due to the better load balancing. Most the info in this thread is a joke.

I didn't mean DD-WRT for the firmware, I meant it as in having a really, really powerful router... many times more powerful than a conventional consumer router. Powerful as in hardware powerful, not features. There's plenty of other router software with a shitton of features if you're into that.

The intel card gives you two things:
1. Better drivers
2. Less CPU utilization than onboard

Regarding #1. For gigibit ethernet this really isn't an issue anymore. You plug it in and it works. Unless you're doing teaming, need iSCSI support or a TOE on the card the drivers won't matter. (make more of a difference if you're into wireless cards and all that jazz)

Regarding #2. Used to be more of an issue before we had obscenely powerful processors like the 2500k. Only time you'd really *notice* a difference is when you're processor is really bogged down due to a runaway process then your network connection won't immediately die as well.

In reality your system is awesomely highend and about the only component that's 'stock' is your network chip. Spend the money and get one of the Intel Pro cards just because you can and it'll round off a freakin killer system. But don't kid yourself into thinking it'll give you a huge difference, it mostly likely won't.